


Tit for Hat

by OrionLady



Category: Now You See Me (Movies)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Child Abuse, Dancing, Families of Choice, Featuring my deep and poorly hidden obsession with hats, Found Family, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-09-19
Packaged: 2020-10-21 20:15:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20699249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OrionLady/pseuds/OrionLady
Summary: Or, how Jack gains more parental figures than he expected and dancing saves his life (and Dylan’s, that one time). This is becoming a habit. Maybe waltzing isn’t so stupid after all.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please enjoy this silly, cathartic piece.

“I still don’t understand the point of this.” Jack stood by his sentiment. Well, he stood by the living room wall, but that was beside the point.

“You’re slick with your hands,” said Dylan, shoving furniture aside. “But you need that same ease with your feet. With etiquette.”

“Slick.” Jack raised a brow. “Daniel Craig just phoned me for an endorsement. Did I mention that? Plenty slick.”

Dylan leveled the youth a look. A smile, quivering at the corners of his mouth, took the bite out of his expression. 

Jack rolled his eyes. “I’m not doing it.”

Dylan nodded, as if he’d expected to lose the argument all along. “Sure. I’m just going to ask that you watch, that’s all.”

Jack shifted. His crossed arms made the leather at his elbows creak.

Alma had dropped by for another month’s stay. Even in dress pants and a lilac collared work shirt, she was ten times more graceful than Jack could ever conceive of faking, let alone actually being. Street smooth was one thing. Ballroom dancing? Pff. Forget it.

Dylan nudged the Interpol agent into a quick twirl. She laughed, swatting his arm on the way by. 

“When will we ever need to know this?”

“What if you’re on a job and you need to distract a pretty lady?” Dylan countered. Though he continued to waltz Alma to an invisible three beat, his eyes remained on Jack’s hunched form. “It’s just another skill in your arsenal.”

Jack frowned. Merritt chose that moment to saunter in and fling an arm around the sleight’s shoulder. He flipped his porkpie over Jack’s furrowed brow and eyes.

“Naw, ole Jacky Boy is just the only one here who’s never learned to dance.”

With the subtlety of much practice, Jack schooled his face into something easy, calm, in time for Merritt’s thumb to gently lift the hat. Dylan’s lopsided grin replaced the darkness. 

“This hat smells like toe sweat,” was all Jack said. 

An answering wink summed up Merritt’s thoughts. And then a warm hand found Jack’s wrist and _blam_—Jack was in the middle of the antique carpet.

He wasn’t quite sure how Alma had pulled the sly on him, honestly. 

“This is so stupid,” he bleated.

Jack expected some kind of snide rebuke—“_you’re_ stupid, Cards”—but none came except for a palm and manicured fingers tapping his cheek.

“You’ll be fine,” said Alma. “I’ve got you.”

“Oh there!” Dylan waved his arms like he was directing a plane. “You made a box.”

“A box?” Jack jerked in alarm. “That doesn’t sound good.”

“With your feet,” Dylan explained. “Make a square with your feet by swaying to the beat.”

“What beat?”

Dylan set the needle on their dusty record player. Jack grit his teeth. Alma led his dance for the first song, teaching him how to lead, before letting him try. Jack dutifully made the “frame” with his arms. Sweat frothed along his brow. Nothing to do with exertion. 

“Your partner is the picture,” Dylan repeated. 

Jack splashed on a quick smile for his audience at the door. “Can’t a guy get a little privacy around here?”

Daniel’s eyes crinkled, just the barest hint fond. “Nope.”

Merritt had his phone out, videoing the whole thing. 

Jack groaned. “Aww, come on!”

“It’s a proud day for all of us,” Merritt deadpanned.

Dylan mouthed something at him that Jack was pretty sure was a swear word, a string of them. 

Merritt grinned. 

“Didn’t you ever go to school dances?” Alma asked Jack, correcting the youth’s off time steps. 

Jack just laughed. Alma threw Dylan a confused smile to which the magician shook his head. 

This barely registered past the perfume of lighthearted laughter, Strauss’s sweet melodies, and no one yelling. Jack’s smile became genuine. The tight pinches around his lips smoothed. At the sight, so did Dylan’s.

Jack still didn’t see the point of dancing, but he enjoyed it anyway.

* * *

The first time Jack used his newfound waltzing skills was in the back alleys of Calcutta. 

Not exactly what he was expecting. Not what the two private security sharks sprinting after him expected either. 

Jack smirked under the shadowed folds of his hood. The street was a dead end and Jack heard his pursuers slow their breakneck pace, the woman on heels and the man in his pin stripe three piece. Jack didn’t pause, didn’t put the brakes on. The pair shouted a tandem warning. 

The mud and mortar wall racing for Jack’s face was crumbling in places, despite its height, and cracks fanned along one edge.

It proved plenty stable enough for Jack to run up the wall and do a side flip over the male agent’s head. The man gasped. His partner blocked the alley with her arms. 

_“Make a frame.”_

Jack didn’t even try to sideswipe but went straight for the woman’s arms. Alarm flickered in her eyes. She held her ground. 

Jack grabbed her hand, the other under her shoulders, and twirled a three step with his feet. The woman reached for an automatic at her hip but Jack was faster. He threw her into a quick dip. Center of gravity skewed, the agent instinctively reached for Jack’s arm. 

The tracker fit snugly on the cuff of her blazer. Jack pressed it for activation. 

“Thank you kindly!” Jack set her on her feet with a wink and vanished down the alley entrance. Bullets staccato-ed off the walls. 

Jack palmed the access card he’d picked from the man’s pocket earlier. His feet did a tiny skip.

A three beat.

* * *

The next time, at least, it was at an actual dance. With a woman who, you know, actually wanted to dance with him.

A seventy year old woman, in fact—and the mother of his pretty mark. The dame had a field of wrinkles, expertly hidden by white powder. Jack twirled the aging matron to a live orchestra under marble arches, trying to look relaxed in his coat tails and white gloves. He felt like he’d become seventy percent starch at this point.

His mark, a wealthy socialite and _smokin’ hot_ if anyone was asking (they hadn’t yet) waved with a flirty gesture at Jack from the edge of the dance floor. Next to her father. He didn’t look as impressed.

_Focus_, Jack snapped at himself. _You’ve gotta keep Melina here, downstairs, while the others raid her safe and Daddy’s files._

Still, the 59th Street bridge incident came unnervingly to mind. Being the decoy never went well for him.

No one knew how close he came to flipping the car that day. Except, perhaps, Dylan—who later confessed in private that he thought the car switch hadn’t worked, until he’d surged close enough to the wreck to see the cadaver’s body. That his initial panic was very real and he’d been ready to fling himself off that bridge because he couldn’t live with the slaughter of a child on his hands. Jack, though he had flushed at Dylan’s vehemence, had replied with a little smile.

“I’m technically eighteen,” he’d mumbled.

Dylan’s throat had worked up and down and he’d squeezed the nape of Jack’s neck.

“Mind if I cut in?”

Melina, in her plunging midnight blue dress, set manicured nails on Jack’s arm. Her mother offered the pair an indulgent grin and a pat on Jack’s cheek that made him rigid.

“I’ll leave suitors be,” the matron cooed. Jack bowed.

“You’ll have to forgive my parents,” said Melina. Her back felt warm under Jack’s hand. “They’re a little...particular about how things ought to be.”

“You inherited their beauty _and _brains, then,” said Jack.

The woman’s eyes sparked with amusement. “Aren’t you just a charmer this evening?”

Jack laughed and thought that under different circumstances, they could have been good friends. He spun her in a lazy circle. A mental timer ticked in his head, but he also liked the sea foam green of Melina’s eyes and marveling at a life style he’d never been able to afford.

“Where did you learn to dance?”

Jack shrugged. “Here and there.”

_Sixty seconds and they’ll have cleaned out the vault. _Jack’s muscles unwound. Melina was thoroughly enjoying herself. They had this in the bag and the fraud in her father’s company would be exposed...

“Not this again!”

Jack tracked the husky male voice to a shadowy corner of the atrium. Melina’s father threw back the last of his wine and barked something else at his indignant wife, hands on her hips. They were drowned out by the orchestra. If Jack hadn’t been dancing so close, he wouldn’t have heard them at all.

“Ignore my parents.” Melina seemed bored watching the interaction. “It’s probably over Mom’s spending budget or Daddy’s travel schedule or something.”

“They fight like this a lot?” Jack felt proud when his voice came out rock steady.

Melina cocked her head. “You know…they never used to. Just this year they’ve, well, you get the picture. Maybe it’s old age.”

Jack didn’t hear any of this, owing to his fixed gaze upon the couple.

“How dare you insinuate such a thing!” the older woman railed at her husband. 

“Me?” The man drew back. He flushed magenta. “You’re the one who humiliates me at every opportunity!” His bare hands went in the air. “You ungrateful excuse of a—”

Jack didn’t know when his feet started moving but suddenly he was between the wealthy tycoon and his wife. “Is there a problem here?”

The man whirled on Jack, still breathing hard. “Just because you took my daughter out to dinner a few times does not mean you get to stick your nose in our family’s affairs!”

Jack swallowed but squared his stance. “Look, you shouldn’t yell at a lady. At least take this outside—”

“You imp,” the older man snarled. “Get out of my sight!”

Jack’s eyes blazed. “Get away from the lady.”

“She is my wife!”

Jack flinched a little at the volume. “All the more reason to discuss this when you have a clearer head.”

The male stare-down lasted longer than was socially comfortable, certainly longer than Jack expected. A shiver went down his spine. One wrong move and the Horseman’s whole tapestry unraveled.

A warm hand on Jack’s shoulder made him jump. Dylan, waiter’s cloth hung over one forearm, pretended to look disinterested.

“Monsieur,” he said to Jack in a flawless German accent, “There is a phone call for you in the lounge. Your meeting’s been _cancelled_.”

Jack blinked at him. That had never been a code word. Had the mission failed?

But then he found a tint of concern under Dylan’s character and deflated when he realized what it was.

_‘I’m getting you out of here,_’ it said. A safe word. 

Jack bowed to Melina, kissed her mother’s hand, and with a soft “excuse me” followed Dylan out the servant’s entrance. Once in the crisp Vienna air, Jack ripped off the gloves with his teeth, then unclipped the cummerbund. Dylan yanked away his skinny server’s tie.

“Did we get the information?” asked Jack.

Dylan nodded. “Our part went off without a hitch.”

Jack nodded too. “Good. That’s good…”

Dylan didn’t look at Jack, but he clapped him on the back. His hand rubbed a quick circle before dropping. Jack felt as heavy as their steaming breath. 

“I’m sorry,” said Dylan. He wasn’t talking about tonight.

Jack sighed. “There’s nothing you could have done. You didn’t know me then.”

Neither was Jack.

* * *

“That was your job!” Jack hissed.

Merritt’s hat had slipped to a crooked angle, humorous against his glitzy purple bow tie. 

“The bus roster said the theater,” the mentalist defended. “I had no idea we’d end up..._here_.”

Jack kept his eyes firmly on his friend, refusing to look to the right and the reality of _here_. A bumblebee circled Jack’s head before deciding he was not a flower. June heat drew beads of sweat from the brows of both men. 

“They seem happy to have us…”

“No.” Jack slashed his hands to either side. “We are not entering this hokey talent show.”

“Oh come on.” Merritt snorted. “I’ve done way more embarrassing things in my youth.”

Jack had the sudden mental image of Merritt in a sundress and shook it away. 

“It’s either this or the cops catch up with us,” said Merritt, softer.

“They still might.”

Merritt spread his arms. “All the more reason to enter! Hide in plain sight.”

Yet _another _old lady—wearing the blue ribbon for best cherry jam—cooed over their ridiculous Vegas outfits. Merritt lapped it up.

Jack wondered whether Dylan and the others had made it to the safe spot, if they panicked when he and Merritt didn’t show up. Splitting up had been their only choice after the show. The SWAT team had surprised even Dylan. Logically, their contingency plan made sense (“that’s a fancy way of saying plan B,” Merritt had drawled, brows knit) but still…

“Since you picked the wrong get away bus and got us into this mess,” said Jack, “you get to be my assistant.”

Merritt’s head whipped up from where’s he’d been looking at a woman’s grandbaby photos. Eyes wide. He waved the ladies off with an absent smile. “You know, on second thought, we shouldn’t enter. Magic might attract more bad attention.”

Jack raised a brow. “It’s a middle-of-nowhere county fair. Do you see anyone ready to bust us? We just have to kill enough time to catch the evening Greyhound. Though I still say we should’ve wired a car...”

“And I told you that would only alert the authorities to our presence,” said Merritt patiently. 

They shuffled over to the sign up table in silence. Merritt leaned down to the smaller man’s ear. 

“It’ll be a piece ‘a cake, Brooklyn Boy.”

His eyes narrowed, mouth quirked up on one side. It took a minute to recognize that Merritt was laughing at Jack’s leather jacket in the sweltering heat. Jack stubbornly pulled the lapels closer and hated to admit that he felt better with Merritt by his side. 

“Shut up,” he said, but it was weak and the mentalist wasn’t fooled. He put his hat on Jack’s messy hair with a fond chuckle.

_This is becoming a habit_, Jack thought.

“You’re signing up for the talent finale at five?” asked an acne faced male attendant. 

“You betcha!” Merritt wrote their names on the clipboard with a flourish. 

“What’s your talent?” asked the teen.

A bright glint flared in Merritt’s eye. His hands froze and he grinned, teeth and all. 

“Oh no,” said Jack. He paled. “Whatever you’re thinking—_no_.”

Merritt ignored him. “We’ll be doing a combination magic dance act, my good man.”

Jack gaped at him. “Dancing? Seriously? What is this, _West Side Story_?”

Now would have been a _fantastic time_ for Dylan to swoop in with that safe word. Jack ran a hand down his face.

“This is gonna be the best hiding-from-the-FBI story ever!” Merritt gushed.

Jack wanted to say, ‘This is our _only_ hiding-from-the-FBI story, Merritt,’ but realized he couldn’t. 

_This is becoming a habit_, and Jack had to blink the vertigo daze from his vision.

“We have three hours to kill and I already called Dylan to apprise him of our bus switcheroo.” Merritt checked his watch. He made no move to grab the fedora back, which surprised Jack more than anything else in this crazy day. “Candy apple?”

Jack worried about Merritt’s head getting sunburned. Then realized he was worried about a bald man getting sunburned who lived to tease him.

With a long, weary look up at the sky, Jack shrugged a shoulder. “Why not?”

They rode the Ferris wheel and the Hurricane ride. Merritt told Jack all about how the ride operator had just had twins but was conflicted because _his _brother had died in childhood, all while the mentalist dripped caramel everywhere so Jack couldn’t keep a straight face.

He got to pet a sheep and the prize Clydesdale with her dinner plate sized hooves. Jack snapped pictures of Merritt winning a gargantuan duck for a little girl at the ‘how many marbles are in this jar’ station (he argued that “funky mind powers,” as Jack put it, were not technically cheating). 

It was the most…normal day Jack had experienced in years. 

“It’s no Coney Island,” said Jack around a mouthful of peanuts, “but they make a mean candy apple. Who knew?”

“You’ve never been to a fair?” asked Merritt, not even trying to hide his surprise.

Jack shrugged. “Couldn’t afford Coney Island either. I usually just…slipped in.”

A frown dipped Merritt’s face before he slapped Jack’s arm. “Come on. Twenty minutes ‘til curtain.”

“They don’t _have _a curtain,” said Jack. But he dogged after Merritt and donned the tux jackets they’d stored behind a vendor cart. 

And as Jack waltzed with a woman Merritt hypnotized, doing heel clicks and spins during his card routine that would make Billy Elliot proud, he decided that maybe dancing wasn’t so stupid after all.

Even when the feds appeared, one by one in their dark sedans, Jack swayed off stage to the singing of Merritt’s volunteer. Merritt snapped his fingers and the spell broke. Applause called out for an encore. Jack left the packed audience of Corn Creek County Fair with a confetti of cards.

“Time to catch a bus,” said Merritt.

“Yup.” Jack looked just as cavalier. 

Their tense posture belied them. It was only when their Greyhound roared onto the I-95 that they relaxed. Merritt groaned and snatched the hat from Jack.

“What?” asked the younger man.

“We don’t know if we won! There was a fifty dollar jackpot for the local bar!”

Jack had no idea if Merritt’s display was genuine or that signature wry humour. It certainly sounded real. He didn’t get to ask—Merritt had yanked the brim over his eyes, slouched in his seat, and fallen asleep still muttering about “perfectly good Guinness, wasted.”

Jack shook his head. “Unbelievable.”

Merritt woke to a newspaper the next morning on his motel room doormat in Oregon. The headline read: TWINKLE TOES TAKE NAMES AND HYPNOTIZE HEARTS. 

It detailed two strange men who danced their way to winning a county talent show, despite no one having seen them before. Merritt never figured out the near-miracle of how the paper got to his door and he never asked. 

Though he did buy a pint on his next pass through Corn Creek and toasted it to a scrawny boy in a leather jacket.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack slung Dylan’s arms off and eased him to the ground. 
> 
> The man’s lips were blue.
> 
> “Come on, Dylan.” Jack slapped the waxy cheek, pumped the chest. “Breathe.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story was conceived to snazzy 40s tunes and I hope that shows.

The loss of the treeline, out into open fields, proved chillier than expected.

This didn’t pause Jack’s stumbling jog. He felt fevered, despite the temperature. A man groaned at Jack’s back and the youth slowed. He clasped a pair of hands in front of him, the other man’s feet dragging behind them. His head lolled on Jack’s shoulder.

A fireman’s carry had been out of the question, injuries considered, and more tears stung Jack’s eyes—these ones from shame—that he wasn’t strong enough to carry the larger man bridal style.

_Everyone’s bigger than me_. Dylan deserved better than to be dragged across the unforgiving ground. 

A spasming shudder assaulted the larger man. Jack halted, eyes glassy. He didn’t realize he’d been tracking the steady press of the man’s chest against his back until it stopped. 

_No. Nononononono._

Jack slung Dylan’s arms off and eased him to the ground. 

The man’s lips were blue.

“Come on, Dylan.” Jack slapped the waxy cheek, pumped the chest. “_Breathe_.”

The December morning was just as much as, if not more of, a danger than blood loss. Jack whipped off his wool scarf and pressed it to the long slash in Dylan’s abdomen because hedge clippers, really? And everyone knew you were supposed to be safe from assassins (_who’s trying to kill us anyway?_) in the fricking _English countryside_. Not that he or Dylan intended to get stranded here. They’d been lost in the wilderness for over two days, after escaping capture from said hitmen.

Jack’s stomach had stopped feeling hungry.

“Breathe!” Jack roared.

An agonizing twelve seconds followed. Until finally Dylan’s lungs contracted with a stuttered sort of breath that sounded feeble but symphonic to Jack’s ears. 

He pulled Dylan into his arms, across his knees, to share some heat. It’s what Jack told himself but sue him if he was shaking and needed to feel the dead weight of his unconscious leader.

Jack’s leather jacket was pitiful against the frost, but he wrapped Dylan in it anyway. 

Dylan’s head of curls cradled in Jack’s right elbow. 

_My hair looks like that grown out_.

Jack adjusted Dylan’s arm across his chest to rest on his shoulder. It felt like a seatbelt around Jack’s body. 

_Like a frame_.

He rocked in an attempt to stave off the stinging behind his eyes. The scarf slowed the bleeding, tacky between Jack’s fingers and where Dylan had rested against Jack’s back. It dripped onto the dead grass. Both were coated eyelash to pinky toe in mud. Brown blood and British soil. 

Jack swayed side to side and choked back keening noises and what do you know—_we’re dancing_.

They were dying. Dancing—living—dancing—dying…wasn’t it all the same? Jack couldn’t tell anymore.

The “gardener” had come out of nowhere, ignoring Jack (didn’t everyone?) to charge Dylan with the clippers. A savage scuffle had ensued. Dylan managed to break the man’s leg and nose.

But the hit man had used the opportunity to run Dylan along his clippers. Dylan had collapsed on mossy earth like the end of Swan Lake, only instead of applause was Jack screaming to get to Dylan, pirouetting over tree roots from where’d he’d been scouting ahead.

Jack’s broken waltz with Dylan was rudely interrupted by a sharp pain in Jack’s cheek. He jolted to the present.

Another slap. But Merritt didn’t look teasing at all and Jack had never seen that expression of utter terror on the man’s face before.

_Merritt? _The word got lost on the way to Jack’s tongue.

Merritt tried to get Jack to follow the movement of his thumb—_I don’t have a concussion, Merritt_—but got distracted by Daniel on his phone while simultaneously in an argument with a redhead at his elbow. 

_My phone. Daniel tracked my stolen phone_.

A car pulled up and Alma leaped out, trailed by a swarm of doctors in scrubs and parkas.

_Huh_. Jack realized that, on some transcendent instinct, he’d nearly wandered to the road.

And then hands were all over him, trying to pull Dylan from his arms. His breathing hitched.

_You’re supposed to ask nicely if you want to cut in_, Jack protested.

Merritt read the micro-expression and shooed everyone back. “Jacky Boy, you did good. Let us take it from here. You got ‘im.”

Jack continued rocking. A buzz of pride filled him at Merritt’s words. Dylan wasn’t dead. Filthy, yes. Slathered in blood that wouldn’t stop—but alive. 

Merritt’s eyes pinched at the edges. “Son, don’t make me sedate you.”

Jack didn’t understand how this was possible, given that Merritt had no syringes. The doctors had lots though. They jabbed one in Dylan’s wrist, “for the tetanus risk.” Jack thought of the rusty hedge clippers. His mouth went dry.

A woman knelt on the other side of Jack—_just Henley_, his mind supplied—(because Merritt refused to give up his protective post) and reassured him the cops picked up Dylan’s would be killer and her hair look like poppies against the English—

Jack finally relinquished his hold on Dylan out of sheer astonishment. He stopped rocking, mouth open. Eyes on Henley.

“Oh good, you broke him,” said Merritt.

Daniel rushed in close to ruffle Jack’s hair and _are you crying, Atlas?_ Merritt threw a blanket around Jack, arms tight. By some new trick he got the youth to his feet.

And then they were moving to the car and if Merritt basically held Jack upright the whole way, well, that was okay. Merritt eased a stiff Jack into the back seat, then squeezed in next to him. Arm slung over Jack’s shoulders, he took off his knitted toque and planted it over Jack’s numb ears. 

_This is becoming a habit_.

“You’re lucky, Jack Frost.” For the silly words, Merritt’s face was awfully serious. “Good lad.”

This last nickname was said mostly to himself. Jack drifted but not in the sleepy kind of way. His eyes wouldn’t close. Merritt kept up a steady contact of words. Soft, full of a gentle, grey humour. Sometimes Merritt made himself laugh and Jack liked the feeling against his aching ribs. 

Reality returned in the form of an unfamiliar house. A doctor looked Jack over in the foyer before having a quiet word with Merritt. Something about bruising and starvation and hypothermia and severely strained muscles. 

_I did drag Dylan for a good six hours. _

A thermos nestled in Jack’s hands. He started. It took longer for his eyes to find the source of his surprise than he liked. Daniel knelt in front of the chair and coached Jack how to drink the broth and vegetables. He held the bottom steady while the smaller man sipped. 

“That should warm your insides right up,” said Daniel, with a similar kind of pride in his voice. The words didn’t sound right from Daniel’s mouth, more as if he’d heard someone else say them many times. 

“I’ve got a better idea,” said Merritt. There he went again, getting Jack to his feet without him even realizing it. Jack made a note to ask him about the amazing sleight of hand. Merritt steered him for a large bathroom down the hall. “Don’t come out until I can see you under all that muck. Towels on the right.”

Daniel’s hand found Jack’s hair again. “Merritt, are you sure we should leave him alone?”

“Shush.” But Merritt’s smile at Daniel was all humour. “Showers are a man’s best friend.”

“I think that’s dogs.”

“Shoo. How would you know?”

Daniel blinked, apparently stumped by that one. It had been a long two days. 

Jack shut the bathroom door and locked it. Lurching on his feet, he stood for a long time before peeling off his clothes and running the shower. All the body products were pink or purple with fancy flower names. Jack didn’t care. He slathered on anything and everything, watching Dylan’s blood swivel down the drain. Soon the floor of the tub was black with Yorkshire grime. The warm steam felt funny against his buzzing skin.

All at once, Jack’s numb toes wouldn’t support him anymore. He thumped to a gawky position, head in his hands. Voices shrilled outside the door.

“Jack?” called Henley. “I’m coming in, okay?”

It wasn’t really a question, but Jack did little more than stare at the opposite wall. A key jangled in the lock. Heels stepped in. The door closed behind her.

It occurred suddenly that this was Henley’s house, that _of course_, she said she’d be returning to her home in England when she left them. Jack blinked a few times. He hoped Henley wouldn’t pull back the starry blue shower curtain.

She didn’t. Jack heard her sit on the plastic toilet seat lid.

“You alright?” she murmured.

Jack nodded, then remembered she couldn’t see it. He stuck his thumb out. Henley gave it a squeeze.

“Good. Do you need help getting up?”

Thumbs down.

“If you’re sure…” Jack could picture the escapist biting her lip in that way she always did. “I’m just going to stay until you finish. My heart nearly stopped when Daniel called me. But, duh, of course I wanted to help. Couldn’t believe he implied I’d let you freeze on my doorstep. I’m sorry about Lula leaving. Actually, let’s not talk about that…you should see my azaleas in the spring, Jack. You’d love them.”

Henley told Jack all about her prized garden while Jack sat on the floor and washed his hair. His ears rang. The fine shivering finally stilled. Almost an hour passed under the hot stream.

When Jack shut off the water, all was silent. Jack peered out and wondered when Henley had left. She’d placed a fresh change of fleecy clothes on the sink. Jack didn’t want to know how she had underclothes and sweats exactly in his size.

_Our sizes_, Jack realized when he stepped out and saw Merritt and Daniel asleep on the couch in new duds.

Alma waved Jack over, finger to her lips. Jack followed the woman into the guest suite. Dylan was propped up on a field of pillows. The doctor quietly put her suture kit away.

“He’s sleeping peacefully, not unconscious,” the woman said, stethoscope dirty around her neck. “Though he should be out of the woods now. The sedative will wear off by tonight. I’ll stop by in the morning.”

The doctor’s scrubs sported an eye over the breast pocket. Jack supposed he should be surprised the organization had its own doctors but he wasn’t. Alma shook the woman’s hand and dutifully wrote down Dylan’s medications.

Jack tuned the rest out. Alma closed the door with a soft smile at Jack.

Jack’s legs felt wobbly for the umpteenth time that day. He had to hold the wall on the way to the bed. He sat on the plushy duvet at Dylan’s hip. The man had been cleaned chest down for emergency stitches, now in a thick gown. His face, however, was still streaked with filth. A canula fed warm oxygen to his lungs.

Checking over his shoulder that they were still alone, Jack dipped a cloth in a fresh basin that had been left on the nightstand. Steam curled from the water.

_Your partner is the picture_.

So, slow and reverent, Jack pulled the cloth over Dylan’s skin. Through his long eyelashes. Mud flaked away from his lids and mouth. His dusty eyebrows became auburn once again. The hair was harder, curls knotted together in brittle clumps. Jack found a beech leaf near the man’s ear.

Dylan’s eyes popped open at some point. Neither said anything, Dylan only offering his other hand when Jack scrubbed around the IV line. The man’s eyes never left Jack’s face. Calm, blinking low, tinged with something affectionate.

He’d been shaved so Jack wiped foamy patches away. He cleaned under Dylan’s finger nails, the grooves beneath his chin. The pockets of his eyes, the dimples near his nose.

Jack dipped the spongy cloth over and over again, until the water ran brown. Until his aching body sat back, oozing relief. He allowed himself the tiniest of grins, one that barely touched his lips but crinkled his eyes.

They gazed at each other a moment without speaking. Jack wondered how they’d survived this one.

Dylan reached on the other side of the bed for a muddy leather jacket. “I believe this belongs to you.”

Jack took it with a nod. He held it close to his chest.

“You see a lot,” Dylan whispered. “It saved my life.”

“Thank God one of us does.” Jack’s voice crackled after hours of disuse. “Watching you drop was one of the scariest things I’ve ever…”

No matter how hard Jack tried, he couldn’t finish. He felt the ice under his knees, the birds flanking into the air. Dylan’s graceful, dancer’s crumple to the ground.

Dylan placed a shaking hand on the side Jack’s face. “I see a lot too. I see you.”

Jack’s eyes stung. He wrestled it back.

“I see you,” Dylan repeated. “You’re not invisible, no matter what your mother and father insisted.”

Jack’s mouth twisted in all sorts of bizarre, trembling shapes.

“You owe me a new scarf,” he said, voice wet.

Dylan’s eyes lit up. He shook his head. “You’re pretty slick, Mr. Wilder. Very slick indeed.”

* * *

When Jack woke, he was wearing a trilby hat.

Jack frowned. He’d fallen asleep on Henley’s couch. Again.

It had been a week since he and Dylan’s traumatic romp through the woods. Jack’s sleep, restless and intermittent and never in an actual _bed_, matched Dylan’s.

Daniel and Henley argued a lot but every time they did, their bodies got closer. Daniel’s burning fury simmered to fond frustration. Merritt seemed more at ease than he had in months—he slept like the dead. Alma snapped photos of them all when she thought they weren’t looking.

Jack twirled the hat between his hands and spied a card folded in the teal brim.

‘Dylan’s cooking again,’ said Merritt’s scrawl. ‘You drew the short straw. Or…Daniel drew it for you.’

Sure enough, a chorus of clattering spoons on pots filtered from the kitchen.

It was a peculiarity of the universe that Dylan loved to cook, especially when he needed to think. And he was _good_. Professional level, even. Alma joked that if the magician thing didn’t work out, he’d be guaranteed a job in France.

Jack snorted. “Short straw? Yeah right.”

Jack suspected that every time they drew straws, it was rigged on his behalf. The others’ way of showing they cared. Dylan wasn’t allowed to cook without supervision while on such strong medication and Jack was too shy to admit he wanted to help. Being near the older man was the only thing keeping Jack sane.

_He didn’t die. You didn’t fail. _

Wandering into the kitchen, Jack straightened his rumpled sweater. The cold had seeped deep into his marrow that day. He wasn’t sure he’d felt truly warm since. When the others found out how any kind of cold now made Jack tremble, Daniel mysteriously had a wool blanket on hand at all times. Fricking Mary Poppins.

Dylan had his back to the kitchen entrance. He stirred a soup pot on the stove. Jack leaned on the door frame.

“Cutting board’s there,” said Dylan without turning around.

A red pepper and small Forschner sat waiting. There was even an ‘I –heart– NY’ apron.

Jack scoffed. “I’m not wearing that.”

Even without seeing the scruffy face, Dylan’s smirk hung palpable in the air. Jack rolled his eyes but he was smiling too.

They cut in silence. Jack twirled the knife between his fingers before starting on cinnamon sticks for the bread loaf Dylan was prepping to go with his harvest soup.

“Can you knead this dough for me?”

Jack turned. A streak of flour adorned Dylan’s forehead. Like white bindi. The image was strangely fitting.

“Jack?”

“Right,” said the youth. Zoning out. Also a new thing. “Sorry. How do I do that?”

Dylan stared at him. “It’s bread dough. You…knead it.”

“Actually I’m trying to lay off carbs.”

Dylan tried to look annoyed but his lips turned up. “You fold it over itself.”

Jack blinked. “What?”

“Here.” Dylan tore the bread dough ball in half and stood beside Jack. Shrike’s fingers shimmied together in a dusting of flour over their adjacent cutting boards. “See how my hands, the heels, push the dough away from me? Good, now I pull it back.”

Dylan’s fingers smoothed back and forth, wrist gyrating to fold the dough into a mouth shape. Then he smooshed it down. Jack had forgotten to blink. The mesmerizing display was rhythmic.

Shove, pull, fold. Shove, pull, fold. Shove, pull, fold…

Jack’s hands took up the three beat. The comforting hum of the fridge harmonized with the bubbling soup pot. Steam unwound coiled muscles in Jack’s neck. It cooled on his cheeks like stolen kisses.

“Did your father beat you as well?” asked Dylan in his quiet rasp.

Jack’s hands hesitated.

_I wish_, he almost said, then thought better of it. His mother’s later boyfriend took care of that department.

His breathing threatened to skip but the sight of Dylan’s steady kneading uncoiled Jack’s shoulders.

Shove, pull, fold.

Jack’s eyes glazed somewhere into the past—

_Shove. Pull. Fold._

“Everyone assumes I come from poverty,” said Jack. “From crime.”

Dylan met his eyes. Said nothing.

“For a while we lived in a nice two story in Queens. White picket gate and everything. I would’ve given my left arm to have them stop fighting, though.”

Jack focused on the dusty feeling of the dough between his fingers. He began to shiver.

“I don’t really know what happened. Finances maybe? Yelling, threats…they hid behind the upper middle class veneer.”

“I know.” Dylan never rose above that murmur. “Your father died when you were seven.”

Jack scratch at his nose with a blank sort of nod. “Got drunk and stumbled in front of a truck. After that, Mum just didn’t care anymore. She lost hope. Pretended I didn’t exist.”

Shove, pull, fold.

Flour had settled in Dylan’s hair like Father Christmas. Jack supposed he should feel angry saying his neglected childhood out loud. But Jack just felt _tired_. His bones groaned, creaky leather baked too long in the sun.

Dylan pried the dough from Jack’s fingers and the youth realized Dylan had been saying his name.

“Mum married some floozy rich guy when I was fourteen,” Jack found himself saying. Dylan bent to place the dough pans in the oven. “She and that snake charmer were thicker than thieves. They kicked me out. My life turned into a game of cat and mouse with CPS. Trash cans became comfy beds, all that Oliver Twist crap.”

Dylan whipped around and blinked very fast. “That…that I did not know.”

Jack shrugged. “It feels like a lifetime.”

“Jack.” Dylan’s voice finally rose. He set a hand on his hip—a familiar warning tick. He was apoplectic. “That was only _six years_ ago. Your family let their boy starve on the streets.”

Jack looked at his white hands. He sighed.

Dylan shook too, for an entirely different reason. He turned away, but not before Jack caught the stiff jaw and haunted eyes.

They didn’t bother setting the table. Everyone had ended up around a rerun of _Columbo _in the living room. Dylan handed out steaming bowls of soup over the back of the couch to the other three Horsemen and Alma. Jack tried, but his shaking hands nearly spilled. Merritt caught the boy’s wrist and the soup with a little nod. He gazed at Jack for a minute, eyes shifting back and forth to read the pockets of lost space in Jack’s face.

“Go sit down, kid,” Merritt said quietly. “It’s alright.”

Jack danced to the music of their laughter, bad jokes, and warm stories. His vacuum world had come alive when he met them all. Passing Dylan, he eyed the bulge of stitches and gauze under the older man’s button up.

Jack’s whole body shuddered. Dylan froze.

Burly arms were suddenly around Jack and a big hand cupped the back of his head. Jack short circuited. It had been over a decade since this kind of encompassing embrace so Jack was shamed that it took him so long to reciprocate. His arms latched around Dylan’s neck.

“I see you,” said Dylan. He repeated it over and over again in the boy’s ear. “We all see you.”

Merritt chimed in with a Homburg hat patted lovingly over Jack’s head.

_This is becoming a habit_—

Jack smiled, teeth and all.

And at last he felt warm, toasty down to his core.

**Author's Note:**

> Written August 2016.


End file.
